Learning: Neptune students' Sandy photos on display at Jersey Shore

Feb. 5, 2013

Brietta Wilson, 17, of Neptune explains how she took a photograph to Tommy Pasquella, 16, of Neptune and Steven G. Littleson, president of Jersey Shore University Medical Center. / Tanya Breen/Staff Photographer

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1/30/13 Neptune, NJ Detail of a student's photograph on display during the morning reception featuring Neptune High School students' photographs, youtube video and artwork of the devastation of Superstorm Sandy at Jersey Shore University Medical Center Wednesday January 30. Staff photo Tanya Breen

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NEPTUNE — When she was little, Gabriella Cancemi never feared going down a long, metal playground slide in Shark River Hills. Even as she sped downward, she knew a large pile of wood chips at the bottom would save her.

When Cancemi returned to the playground in the days after superstorm Sandy, the slide was still there, but much of the other equipment, and the chips, were gone.

“It was heartbreaking to see,” said Cancemi, 14. “All of those chips are now in people’s lawns, in the sea, everywhere.”

Armed with cameras, Cancemi and other students at Neptune High School documented the devastation that Sandy wrought on their neighborhoods. Their work is now on display at Neptune’s Jersey Shore University Medical Center.

“They have really done our community a service by preserving all the experiences that our community went through following the storm,” said Steven Littleson, the hospital’s president. “I think everyone in the community will appreciate what they’ve done to help us all remember what we’ve been through, over time.”

The students made collages of their photographs, and even presented some of their work on a piece of boardwalk from Ocean Grove.

“It was an amazing experience to be able to share those feelings,” said Amanda Fitzpatrick, one of several teachers at the school whose students worked on the project. “They’ve captured a lot of history for people in the future.”

Looking through a camera’s lens helped Brietta Wilson notice and focus on some of the details she said otherwise may have blended into the background for her, such as the shape a house’s exposed insulation took after the storm.

“It gave me such a different perspective,” said Wilson, 17, who is interested in pursuing a career in fashion merchandising.

Describing himself as more of a “hands on” kind of person, Austin Latshaw helped create some of the frameworks used to display the artwork. Latshaw was no stranger to the docks in Shark River Hills that Sandy mangled and that other students photographed: only hours before the storm arrived, he helped others try to tie the boats down.

Their work was in vain, the 16 year old said, as many of the boats at the working-class marina cut loose and ended up battering into homes and into each other, all throughout the neighborhood.

“It was terrible to see,” Latshaw said. “All that people tried to do didn’t really seem to matter much.”